the best be badly wounded. Sometimes a bomb may be picked up and thrown
clear before it can burst, but the man who picks it up is throwing away
such chance as he has of being only wounded for the smaller chance of
having time to pitch the bomb clear. The first instinct of every man is
to remove himself from that particular traverse; the teaching of
experience ought to make him throw himself flat on the ground, since by
far the greater part of the force and fragments from the explosion
clear the ground by a foot or two. Of the Germans in this particular
section of trench some followed one plan, some the other. Of the two
men guarding the prisoner the one who was near the corner of the
traverse leapt round it, the other whirled himself round behind
Macalister and crouched sheltering behind his body. Two men near the
corner of the other traverse disappeared round it, two more flung
themselves violently on their faces, and another leapt into the opening
of the communication trench. The officer, without hesitation, dropped
on his face, his head pressed close behind the sandbag on which he had
been sitting.

The whole of these movements happened, of course, in the twinkling of
an eye. Macalister's thoughts had been so full of his plans for the
destruction of the officer that the advent of the bomb merely switched
these plans in a new direction. His first realized thought was of the
man crouching beside and clinging to him, the quick following instinct
to free himself of this check to his movements. He was still on his
knees, with the man on his left side; without attempting to rise he
twisted round and backwards, and drove his fist full force in the
other's face; the man's head crashed back against the trench wall, and
his limp body collapsed and rolled sideways. His mind still running in
the groove of his set purpose, before his captor's relaxed fingers had
well loosed their grip, Macalister hurled himself across the trench and